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That term—library anxiety—is hardly a household name among students, but say it to a college librarian, and he or she will know exactly what you’re talking about. It’s the feeling that one’s research skills are inadequate and that those shortcomings should be hidden. In some students it’s manifested as an outright fear of libraries and the librarians who work there. To many librarians it’s a phenomenon as real as it is perplexing. READ MORE: Do You Suffer from Library Anxiety? | JSTOR Daily

IPads, maker spaces, 3-D printers, and coding skills top the tech wish lists for 1,259 school librarians across the country, according to School Library Journal’s (SLJ) 2015 Technology Survey. Educators are hungry to bring their students even more—whether that’s robotics classes or Arduino kits.

In four small schools scattered across San Francisco, a data experiment is under way. That is where AltSchool is testing how technology can help teachers maximize their students’ learning. Founded two years ago by Max ­Ventilla, a data expert and former head of personalization at Google, AltSchool runs schools filled with data-gathering technology.

Information is captured from the moment each student arrives at school and checks in on an attendance app. For part of the day, students work independently, using iPads and Chromebooks, on “playlists” of activities that teachers have selected to match their personal goals. Data about each student’s progress is captured for teachers’ later review. Classrooms are recorded, and teachers can flag important moments by pressing a button, as you might TiVo your favorite television show.

The idea is that all the data from this network of schools will be woven into a smart centralized operating system that teachers will be able to use to design effective and personalized instruction. There is even a recommendation engine built in. READ MORE: Educating Data | MIT Technology Review.

According to the National Center for College and Career Transitions (NC3T), about 20 percent of careers — and many of the fastest growing areas — directly relate to science, technology, engineering and math.

But by one count, an insufficient number of students today will pursue STEM careers. So how do we convince students that STEM is important even if they don’t think they will pursue a career in a related field? READ MORE: Exposing Every Student To STEM | TechCrunch.

Some of us learn best in the classroom, and some of us … well, we don’t. But we still love to learn, to find out new things about the world and challenge our minds. We just need to find the right place to do it, and the right community to learn with. In this charming talk, author John Green shares the world of learning he found in online video. WATCH: John Green: The nerd’s guide to learning everything online | TED Talk | TED.com.

Preparing students for successful careers is a major part of every educator’s job, but most preservice and professional development programmes don’t cover the skills employers are currently seeking–things like “emergent” leadership, adaptability, humility, and ownership.

At Google, hiring managers don’t care whether a candidate received perfect grades, served as president of the chess club, or even finished university. What they do care about–and what a rapidly increasing number of organisations care about–is soft skills like the ones mentioned above.

We need to be giving students more than a sum of knowledge reflected by a piece of paper. We need to be giving them the tools they need to be resourceful in a socially perceptive way, to innovate not just alone in a lab but with a group of colleagues, and to adapt when new requirements arise. READ MORE: 30 Tips to Cultivate Soft Skills in Your Students | InformED.

A student enrolled at Crafton Hills College has protested the inclusion of a number of graphic novels in the curriculum for her English 250 course. Tara Shultz, along with her parents and friends have called for the “eradic[ation] [of the books] from the system,” and have complained to the College’s administrators over their inclusion.

This professor’s assignment is an inspiration and sounds like the most perfect summer ever!

A summer homework list assigned by Cesare Catà of Don Bosco High School in Fermo, a small town on the Adriatic Sea in northeastern Italy, is currently going viral across that country.

Instead of giving his students required reading assignments, Catà gave them a prescription for how to live an inspired life, telling them that in the next few months, they should take time to admire a sunrise, dream about the future and read, because reading is “the best form of rebellion you have.”

The Huffington Post interviewed Catà, who said he models his teaching methods on Mr. Keating, Robin Williams’ character in the 1989 film “Dead Poets Society.”

The number of college students taking at least one online course has nearly doubled over the past five years according to a report by market research agency Refuel.

Online students are often faced with the challenge of juggling their academic responsibilities alongside families or full-time jobs, which is certainly no easy task.

Technology can help students better manage their learning by providing everything from study aids and research tools to time-management apps, so it’s somewhat surprising to learn that few students are actually using such tools for learning purposes.

The majority of students use online and mobile apps primarily for entertainment according to the Refuel report, with over 70% using them for games, 67% using them for music, and 64% using them for social networking.

If you want to encourage your students to start taking advantage of the many technology tools available to them, here are a few examples of the types of productivity and learning apps that can support them in their studies.